Splicing of textile fabric as it comes from the loom take up roll connecting that roll of fabric to another length of cloth coming from another loom is necessary to carry out the finishing process. For example, on tenter frames, cloth is run in continuous length in open width. Sometimes this splicing is carried out by sewing and sometimes by a heat splicing machine such as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,000,434. In both cases the splice presents resistance to lateral stretching of the fabric resulting in damage thereto as a result of the selvage stretching mechanism being incapable of stretching the length of fabric laterally at the splice. In the case of the patented machine, it will be noted that the jaws continuously fuse one layer of the fabric to the other entirely thereacross and since the splice is a heat bonded joint, such is not yieldable to lateral force exerted thereon such as those which tend to maintain the cloth in uniform open width as on a tenter frame. It is important, however, that the splice extend across the entire width of the fabric between the lengths of fabric so as to present a substantially uniform resistance to longitudinal force tending to pull the fabric through the tenter frame or other finishing equipment.
Accordingly, it is an important object of this invention to provide a splice utilizing apparatus similar to that disclosed in the aforesaid patent as modified herein.
Another important object of the invention is to provide a novel splicing device wherein a pair of jaws apply heat across the fabric to bond two layers together through the use of heat fusible material therebetween.
The heat fusible material may be in the form of a heat fusible strip inserted between the thicknesses of fabric or it may be the fabric itself which will fuse upon application of heat together sufficiently to afford the necessary splice for subsequent finishing operations. In addition to textile material, any sheet material which is processed in open width may be joined to another length thereof through a modification of the process wherein a suitable heat fusible material is employed in creating the splicing.